Science fiction writers are notoriously individualistic in their private lives, political positions, and professional demeanor. SF is a field richly populated with lone wolves, libertarians, bohemians, nonconformists of every stripe. They tend to think their own thoughts and go their own way. Some of them resist editorial tinkering with their work with bright purple ferocity and are usually unhappy in the fundamentally collaborative atmosphere of a place like Hollywood, where writers are (rightly) considered to be nothing more than members of a large team, and not very important members of that team at that.

How strange, then, that the concept of the ‘shared world’ anthology should have taken root so early in our field . . .